Extended Absence

I hope you all accept my apology for my extended absence from the blog world. But, to be fair, I did tell you that this week of school was a tough one for me, I just didn't realize how busy I was actually going to be. I'll give you a short recap, which will be mostly school-related, which I am sure will bore most of you to tears. Fear not, the workout and food-related posts will be back tomorrow, especially because I am in Houston for the next two days for a 10K run that is taking place on Saturday. If you happen to be in Houston, you should sign up to run it with me - it's guaranteed to be a great run!

(Source)

If you have been noticing the lack of sweet treats on the blog, check out this cake that I made for one of my YoungLife teammates on Sunday. His 21st birthday was this past Monday, so we turned our weekly Sunday night meeting into a team dinner. As I am the unofficial team baker, I scoured Pinterest for an extra-special recipe. I knew he liked Oreos, so when I found this no-bake ice cream sandwich cake that was topped with Oreo pieces, I knew I had found a winner.

In terms of school, I had one research paper due on Tuesday, another research paper rough draft and peer review due on Tuesday, a quiz on Tuesday, and an exam this morning. Let's start from the beginning. My research paper was for my adolescent development class, and I was required to formulate a research question that I would answer by actually interviewing an adolescent. Because I was allowed to pick my topic, I chose to investigate female adolescent body image. Based on what we had learned in class, as well as my own personal adolescent experience, I know that adolescent girls struggle with body image. I certainly did, and sometimes I still do! I interviewed one of my YoungLife girls, and her answers were so refreshing. It was really encouraging to learn that she, as well as her group of friends, all have a relatively positive overall body image. It was a really fun and enlightening paper to write, though it does feel good to have two out of three research papers complete.

As for my other research paper, I briefly mentioned how awesome my former English teachers are. Why are they awesome? Because they so kindly took the time to fill out a survey that would help me come up with a couple of conclusions about English teachers and prescriptive rules. In this research paper, I am investigating certain prescriptive (grammatical) rules, and English teacher's responses to these violations in student papers. The final paper isn't due for a couple of weeks, so I had a hard time motivating myself to put 100% effort into the rough draft, but it does feel good knowing that I have done a majority of the research and just have a few organizational things left to work on. I'll be sure to share the results with you guys once I have it fully complete. Though many of you are probably not very interested my findings, I found the results pretty interesting. I guess that's a sign that I'm in the right major!

The quiz and the test were in the same class - my Wit and Witchcraft in Renaissance Drama English class. The class has been extremely interesting, and my professor is just precious. And I suppose he knows a little bit about the subject matter. Anyway, throughout the last half of the class we read Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, and Middleton's The Changeling. I am a big Shakespeare fan, and I really enjoyed those two plays. They have a very encouraging outcome, whereas The Changeling did not quite come to the same conclusion. In any case, I am officially done with that class, and I can honestly say it has been one of my college favorites.

A scene from The Winter's Tale - a play about renewal, forgiveness, and reconciliation (Source)

And now I am sitting on my couch, watching the NFL draft with my mom, having just enjoyed a meal from my all-time favorite restaurant - you guessed it - Hungry's. Life is good. I hope to be more regular with my posts in these upcoming two weeks, but give me a little leeway room, as I still have exactly two weeks until I am completely done with my junior year of college. It's officially crunch time!